The Kakuma News Reflector, or KANERE, is an independent news magazine produced by Ethiopian, Congolese, Ugandan, Rwandan, Somali, Sudanese and Kenyan journalists operating in Kakuma Refugee Camp, Kenya. It is the first fully independent refugee-run news source of its kind to emerge from a refugee camp, and has attracted considerable international attention.

Leading scholars in the field of human rights and refugee law have contributed to KANERE’s pages, including Dr. Barbara Harrell-Bond of the Oxford Refugee Studies Centre, Merrill Smith of the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, and Dr. Ekuru Aukot, director of the Committee of Experts on the Kenyan Constitution. For links to international media coverage of KANERE’s founding and progress, see KANERE in the News.

When sufficient funding becomes available, we aim to circulate a print version of the online news magazine in Kakuma camp and town. In the meantime, a limited number of print copies are made available for reading in public spaces around the camp. We will endeavor to publish on a monthly basis until funding allows us to increase our publications to twice a month.

KANERE is a registered National NGO in Kenya through the NGOs Coordination Board under the Ministry of State for National Heritage and Culture. Its initial development has been supported by a Fulbright Research Grant from the U.S. Institute of International Education. We continue to seek a more sustainable source of funding, and welcome all proposals or suggestions to this end.

I work at a school in the West which has just received three students (brothers) who grew up most of their lives in Kakuma. I plan to draw your site and your newsletter to attention of our staff to help in their understanding of where these boys have come from and the issues they have faced. Thankyou for your work. (Can anyone by the way point me to the September 2008 UNHCR Fact Sheet which is referred to at the end of your page ‘About Kakuma Refugee Camp’… I have found the UNHCR website impossible to search for their Fact Sheets – anyone with any clues, please let us know)

Thank you Ian. We hope your students and staff enjoy reading about the refugee experience in Kakuma Camp. Please send them many greetings from us here! Unfortunately, I only have hard copies of the UNHCR Fact Sheets, but I am copying your message to Mr. Emmanuel Nyabera of UNHCR Public Relations Nairobi who should be able to assist you.

Hello, Thank You for the good work you are doing at Kakuma. I just want to know if you have any vacancies for a nutritionist. I have just completed my BSc. Foods, Nutrition and Dietetics course at Kenyatta University inclusive of two academic attachments at Kenyatta National Hospital and Thika District Hospital. Kindly let me know how I can apply for internship and/or a job in your renowned organization. Thank you in advance.

Hello Nancy, thank you for your interest! We would welcome your editorial contributions on topics of nutrition and health as they relate to refugees. You may contact the UNHCR or World Food Programme to inquire about possible job openings.

I work for the American Red Cross in Houston- I send Red Cross Messages and Tracing requests, frequently to and from Kakuma. I love the work your organization does, could you also add me to a listserve? thanks for all you do!

The other thing ,if possible ,is to have an icon that will hepl people sign up for the news letter.Add me on your news letter.I live and work with wide range of refugee communites in Australia for the last five years.Currently ,I am undertaking a research project on Settlmnet issues and Needs of Sudanese Refugees in two location in Greater Melbourne .

There is an immense interset by academics ,researchers and practitioners of varied disciplinary backgrounds on refugee issues in general and the impacts of refugee experinces and protracted refugee situation such as the Kakuma .

Your web site and work has a potential to contribute immensely ,richly and in an original fashion in shed light on broad range of the refugee experinces

Hi the editor-in-chief of KANERE and good people of Kakuma refugee camp. I work with MHI International and we will continue to advocate on your behalf for better living conditions with the hope that things will one day improve in your lives. We were in Kakuka in October of 2007 to see how our organization can help improve your lives, as well as some who are now relocated in the United States. Our interest in Kakuma started in 2004 when we started to work with about 600 ex-refugees from Kakuma now relocated in Denver, Colorado USA. Many of them are doing very well and we hope that one day you too will have your break. We hope to visit you soon. Continue the good work. Email us your current edition.

I am encouraged and inspired by the publication of KANERE within Kakuma Refugee Camp. I found your blog through a search for information about Kakuma after seeing the film “God Grew Tired of Us”.

My 10th grade students living in New Haven, Connecticut, in the United States, were fascinated by the film. We are interested in developing a pen pal program with teenagers living in Kakuma. Please add me to your listserv and let me know how we might go about initiating or joining such a pen pal program.

iam very impressed with the work that you are doing in Kakuma, and the Newsletter thing good luck. iam a somalia refguee living in Australia @ moment. plz add me in ur maillist to keep me update of your work,

Good morning am Mr.javin poaching in the last two months i was called for a interview with the Lutheran world federation 2 represent them in this field of water and sanitation as a electrical technician in kakuma but what is surprisingly me is that in the interview the questions which i was asked i answered them in the best of my ability even i was asked when i was ready 2 start the job i was called by a lady who is store keeper that i have qualified to this means that the vacancy been advertise in the news paper their have already been advertised that is LWF Kenya.

Am very much impressed by the moves taken by the refugees in the camp. I was once a refugee at Kakuma. I came to realise Kakuma was one of the best places to be remembered ever in once’s history if you’ve been there. I will never forget about the education processes we have underwent in the camp. People like Wakithae who was the headteacher of Napata made our days in schools. Now their wise saysings still rings in our minds.
To my fellow old boys and girls of Kakuma schools, join us in facebook at: Napata, Bortown and Kakuma Sec. Students and Teachers worldwide. This link is helping us to come together as one group though we are spread in the whole world.

This is such a great resource, well done!I spent a summer volunteering in Lodwar in 2006 and remember visiting some Irish Missionaries up in Kakuma and seeing the camp. It’s size was really what shocked me the most and how long term everything was, almost like a small city.
Anyway great job…keep posting! :)

Oh! My wonderful Refugee camp you are the heart of thousands in Africa .Wonders are performed in you all the times with no resting for people need you so much grant them their dedications .I am now a radio manager in Jonglei state for you make me proud.Write to me at isaiahbol@yahoo.com

Asante sana to the Kanere editor for rocking on with the news paper .its great keep on moving for we reallly loves to hear more about Kakuma .Journalism should not only be taken as aword but an action need implementation .We are there to support the ideas and also be as contributors to its booming in Kakuma.isaiahbol@yahoo.com.

warm greetings to you all,really I could not found nice words to start with as I am back again to my family home kanere,and I would like to step on and giv a word of apologise
for being away from you for so long, actually it was not my choice,but it is the one of the conditions which forces the refugees lliving in nairobi to do so,as forgoten bodies suffering hard to get their ways for resettlement.
we thank God who provides us with small job with sudan radio servics(edc) as drama writter,now I can be able to resume my edtitorial contribution as well as before,
may prays and good wishes to you all ,may God blessing and keeping you moving ahead,espiciall greetings to my faith brothers TEROUMY,KABATA,NAJACHI,
ALSO MY SISTER PATHANY,AND ALL THE THE FAMILY HAPPY X MASS TO YOU.
YOURS,MUBARAK SULEIMAN MOHAMED.
DARFUR COMMUNITY.nairobi-kenya —– Continue fixing ‘shelters’ —–

I don’t know how I stumbled on this but it looks promising. i used to live in kakuma(’97-’00). I have met Barbara h.-Bond, dr Ekuru as well while i was in the camp, what an inspiration to the destitute.. keep up the good work. please add me to the listserv as well.

Hi Solomon,
Thanks so much for your comments and i will take up your request, great to hear that you had lived at kakuma camp and during your stay met with the refugee lawyers you have mentioned above!
Understandably, i feel that you must be resourceful enough to contribute to KANERE issues and life experience both at the camps and abroad?

Greetings. I am a resettlement volunteer in the United States. I am interested in
communicating with residents of Kakuma about your experiences with the aid
organizations operating in the camp. Specifically, I want to hear your
opinions about which programs best promote human rights and agency, and why
you think this is so. Likewise, I am interested in hearing your critiques
of programs that seem less effective. How should aid organizations interact with residents of Kakuma?

If you are interested in sharing your opinions, please respond to the
questions here. By posting your opinions, you agree to have your ideas
incorporated into my study on perceptions of aid organizations in the Kakuma
refugee camp. You do not receive any direct benefit by sharing your
opinions; however, by doing so, you contribute to the open dialogue that
KANERE promotes. If you want to share your opinions privately-for whatever
reason-you may contact me by email at* deramo@vt.edu*. Your opinions will
be kept private and anonymous..

Dear Michele James,
Thank you very much for your comments on KANERE’s blog and we welcome your research study. I know many refugees “Incentive” staffs and those who can afford to go online – however there are limited and expensive internet would be at Kakuma, they will find the discussions interesting and will take part in the discussion; Also trying to link up with the community leaders can add value…

Hi there! I just came across your blog/newsletter and think it’s fantastic (and I say that as both a qualified Journalist and a Humanitarian). I lived and volunteered in Lodwar back in 2006 and had the chance to visit Kakuma, an experience I will never forget. At the moment I am back in College doing a Masters and am planning to write my Research Thesis on Education in Kenyan refugee camps (comparing both Kakuma and Dabaab), so will hopefully return to the Turkana this summer. It would be great to stay in contact and I hope to meet you some day and maybe help with your great work! Janet

Thanks for your good comments about our news paper. Its great that you have once visited kakuma camps and knowledgeable about the practical situations of what the camps look like and protracted refugees stays.

I welcome your research thesis and keep reading kanere and be in touch with us at any time possible!

Welcome kakuma, i am Somali by nationality i leaving kakuma2 zone1 block5 i don’t have many information for this program. i request a translator because i speak Somali,swahili,french,rwanda, burundi languages,thank you for bringing our sufferings to other donors – my contact number is 0716173302

I lived in Kakuma between 1997 and 1998. I did research with the wonderful, brilliant Dr Barbara Harrell-Bond. I loved the spirit of defiance and strength amongst the refugees who refused to lose their dignity, even in the camp. I loved the Turkana people who were fierce and proud and whose land people denigrated, but who loved their land. I loved the countryside, its harsh beauty. But I hated the razor wire fences, the humiliating conditions people were forced to live in, the undignity of ration cards, the dehumanising machinery of UNHCR, the corruption which I witnessed against people who were at their lowest ebb. I was surprised and amazed at how life just goes on, regardless, even in a camp. I got married there because I couldn’t afford to go home to marry, and my husband to be only had enough money to come to the camp, marry me, and go home again!

What I would love to happen is for the camp to be dissolved, and the aid to be given to the local host community, in a fair, transparent, just way, along, perhaps, if necessary, with basic educational and renewable energy equipment. I would love to see the issue of climate change tackled right there in Turkana district, in an area which is experiencing longer and more severe droughts year on year, but which is ignored. I would love the cultures of the people in Turkana, and of the peoples of the camp, to all be respected, all the hierarchical thinking which seeped in and created huge tensions between different peoples and different groups to be tackled. And above all, I would love to be there when, as it well could, restoration of the land took place, real respect for nature and culture evolved, and the desert bloomed, as only deserts can.

If there is any way of contacting those people to whom I taught English in the camp, I’d love to know how you all are, and what you are doing now. If there’s any way of contacting those people who were in Compound 4, or who knew me there, I’d love to hear your news. It was a great honour working amongst you and I am proud and humbled to have been a part of the Kakuma community, even though I made countless mistakes, and had huge personal difficulties during my time there. I hope you know that I was there because I utterly respected the people and the place, and that it shaped my life in very many ways for which I will always be grateful.

I’d like to contact anyone who knew me in the camp. I was teaching English through the Windle Trust and I was collecting oral testimonies from young southern Sudanese boys. I just had a call from Festo Bonyo and will put him in touch with the site. You were a brilliant publication. Good luck and keep up the good work.

Hey kanere, I hope evrythng is runing smothly. I always think about the challenges that you are going through despite the honourable work that you are doing in this camp! We need this voice!! May God bless us. All the best,

[…] The Kakuma News Reflector, or KANERE, is an independent news magazine produced by Ethiopian, Congolese, Ugandan, Rwandan, Somali, Sudanese and Kenyan journalists operating in Kakuma Refugee Camp, Kenya. It is the first fully independent refugee-run news source of its kind to emerge from a refugee camp, and has attracted considerable international attention. […]

Hi brother
I’m UWEZO LUSAMBO from kakuma refugee camp,im a Congolese by nationality,i want to ask that the scholarship is only for those who finished form four in Kenya? what about us who finished in our country? i have four years in Kenya and i want to go back to school but i don’t have money to support myself,and i can said thanks you for help to Congolese for resettlement but i am not yet given thesame chance? Can you help me for school either? I value education as key for tomorrow’s future. I’m 22 year old and i wanted to go to the school of film making. have a good day, my email is uwezopower@gmail.com/uwezo lusambo power at face book!

My name is %name&% and first off I would like to say excellent website.
I have got a quick question which I’d like to ask if you don’t mind. What do you do to clear your head and find your center of focus before you sit down to write? Recently I just can’t get my head clear so that
I’m set to give attention to my ideas. I love writing once I get into it, but usually I feel as if I end up wasting the first 10 to fifteen minutes pushing myself to focus. Do you have any suggestions or methods?

Dear sir\madam,
I would like to request to the Red Cross office if they can help to re-joining my wife and my daughter who are both living in Sweden. So i need help, I am living in kakuma refugee camp.
phone 0705717589

Its like you read my mind! You seem to know so much about this, like you wrote the book in it or something.
I think that you could do with a few pics to drive the message home a little bit, but
instead of that, this is magnificent blog.
An excellent read. I’ll definitely be back.

Hey please try to do a fair job,you have to consider the minor community! How many organizations know about the eritrean refugees who are living in kakuma with out any assistance,this people are almost 0.9% of the total community.but unhcr have been using systematic isolation!!! have anyone seen 1 name of eritrean on the board for case profiling since 2010??? U have to speak out!!

In exercising a refugee free press, we speak in respect of human rights and the rule of law in order to create a more open society in refugee camps and to develop a platform for fair public debate on refugee affairs.